PC hardware upgrades - RAM, hard drives, video cards, power supplies

Eventually, the time comes when your computer is no longer performing as fast as it should. Installed software compounds with other issues such as disk fragmentation, lack of hard drive space and insufficient RAM memory to bring your computer down to a crawl. Don't throw it away, instead bring it in and let our team members advise you on what should be done. Most computers are shipped with a minimum configuration, which is barely enough to run what your computer comes with. This is due to the fact that customers look for best price when it comes to buying a new computer (so they got the minimum amount of memory). Unfortunately, the budget systems, were already underpowered - hence the reason for a low price. These systems were meant to be upgraded by the customer within month of purchase. Needless to say, most consumers were un-aware of the facts, and simply kept on using the system until the performance became so terrible, that they were forced to look for a new computer every two years. Of course, this is exactly what the manufacturers want - to sell more under powered units, to lock you into a vicious circle of spending more money on a new computer every two years.

You can break the vicious circle! In most cases, your computer needs a simple memory upgrade which can be performed for pennies on the dollar. If you are out of space, we can upgrade your computer's hard drive, again, for a fraction of the cost of buying a new one. In fact, by upgrading RAM memory, installing a faster, larger hard drive and at times, reloading a clean installation of Windows can make your old, outdated computer run better than new.

Video card (3-D gaming) upgrades

Is your gaming performance suffering from having an under-powered video card? Did you purchase a game, just to find out that it runs like a slide show on your PC? Modern 3-D games require a special video card unit, specifially desiged to draw 3 dimentional graphics. Most budget systems came with built-in on board video sufficient enough to play solitare and simple Internet games. Most systems can be upgraded with an add-on video card to add 3-D gaming capabilities. The process usually involves installing an add on video card into an existing PCI Express slot on the motherboard. Older machines contain an AGP upgrade slot, which can take a 3D accelerator card. However, AGP interface limitations may not be enough to play the latest games, and a mainboard upgrade may be required. Unfortunately, many budget systems came wih no upgrade slot at all. In this case, we can still help you, by installing a new processor, motherboard and memory, while saving money by re-using the rest of your old components. We can help you make the right decision. Just give us a call, and we will handle the rest.

Power supply upgrades

Most of the new generation gaming video cards require a great deal of power to run properly. Generally, budget computers came with underpowered power supply units ranging from 250-350 watts. Even if your power supply is rated at 480 watts, please keep in mind that 480 is the peak (Max) amount of power that the power supply can provide for a very limited amount of time. Usually a label on the power supply will tell you what the peak output vs normal output is. In most cases, a new generation Nvidia or ATI gaming card will require at least a 550 Watt power supply providing 24 Amps 480 (Watts constant) on a separate 12 volt rail (separate set of power cables dedicated just to the video card). If you add additional hardware, like an extra hard drive or a Blue Ray burner, we would recommend at least a 650-700W power supply to avoid overheating, system crashes and a possibility of fire. Even if you don't know the capacity of your current power supply, you can determine how efficiently it's running by the temperature of the exhaust in the area where power cord plugs in. If the temperature is even slightly warmer than luke-warm, you may already be overloading the power supply. Without sufficient cooling, power supply will overheat, and often smoke, or start an electrical fire. Please be careful and monitor the temperature as well as keep the computer in a well ventilated area to avoid problems.

RAM (Random Access Memory) upgrades

Did you know that most computers on the market came with the bare minimum amount of memory (RAM Chips) required to run the Operating System such as Windows XP? For instance, just to load Windows XP, your computer has to have 128 Megabytes of RAM. In order to be able to run software, or get on the Internet a minimum of 256 Megabytes is required. If you actually wanted to be able to use the Internet, stream a video or work with pictures a minimum of 512 Megabytes is what you need. If you need to edit photograps, at 10 Megapixels, you will need at least a Gigabyte of memory. Any un-used memory does not go to waste. The system will use it to accelerate performance by remembering commonly used components (caching) rather than having to load them from disk every time they are requested. Caching is what makes your system very fast, after the initial load (boot up) process. With sufficient amount of RAM (1+ Gigabytes) and caching, Internet Explorer browser should only take 2-3 seconds to load vs 20-40 seconds with only 256 Megabytes of RAM. That's a dramatic performance boost. For normal Windows XP use, we recommend at least 1 Gigabyte of RAM, 1.5 - 2 Gb preferred. For Windows Vista a minimum of 2 Gigabyes is recommended. Microsoft's newest operating system, Windows 7, is even better at utilizing memory to increase performance, however, it also requires the most minimum memory to run efficiently. For Windows 7 Home, Home Premium and Ultimate we recommend at least 4 Gigabytes of RAM.

Hard drive upgrades

A lot has changed since you bought your computer. Digital pictures increased ten fold in terms of size. Applications have balooned. Digital videos and music files went mainstream. In fact, its is likely that a modern hand held music and video player such as an iPod, has more hard drive storage than your computer. This however can be easily fixed by upgrading your hard drive which have also balooned in capacity and plummeted in price. A modern, 1 Terrabyte hard drive can be purchased for under $100. We can install a new hard drive as an additional drive in your computer just for data, pictures and music. Or, we can clone your old hard drive to the new one, speeding up yor systsem (new drives are much faster) and at the same time increasing your storage capacity. There are two major standards used in hard drives. PATA (Older 80 pin IDE type connector) and SATA, newer, much faster and cheaper standard, which we highly recommend. If you are upgrading from PATA to SATA, an additional Interface card (around $20) and Windows reload may be requiered. Drastic performance increase and loading time decreaseas makes this upgrade not only justifiable, but also well worth your money.

Motherboard (system board, logic board) 
and processor (CPU) upgrades

Occasionally, such as when you have an AGP graphics motherboard and want to play the latest video games, a motherboard and CPU upgrade is in order. It is considerably less expansive than purchasing a new gaming computer and will dramatically increase the performance. Occasionally we can re-use the rest of your components, however you may need to add a new power supply, memory or perhaps video card to the configuration.

Sometimes it may not be worth the money to take the upgrade route. If that's the case, we can special order and often overnight a new computer for you, for less than what you would pay to buy it from a large retail store or manufacturer.

Laptop computer upgrades

Due to the level of component integration, there are only two components that can be upgraded on the laptop (notebook) computer. These are RAM and Hard Drive, both of which can help you increase the performance or increase storage.

If you do decide to get a new machine, we can custom build one for you that contains the right specifications. In addition we can provide you with a brand name Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway, Toshiba or Acer system, and install the necessary upgrades which will save you money in the long run. Call our upgrade advisors at 586-744-4814 and we will be glad to help you choose the right   and the righ hardware.